Which is why it's so important to hold companies that screw it up accountable. That's the only way to get it to change. Forget about everything else, accountability will force new rules for data storage and protection. Without accountability, nothing will change.
Sure but everyone on HN suggests accountability but never defines what they mean by it except for the few who think someone should just be thrown in jail.
So, what do you suggest for accountability?
At that point it would be my theory that consolidation around best practices, software, security audits... would become the norm. It would raise the cost of a company taking on the responsibility itself, that they'd rely on others to reduce the cost through volume. It would probably start looking a lot like PCI and credit card co. Requirements. The big difference here being that there isn't an industry body responsible, but the government, which would always be political and probably not have enough teeth.
This isn't a very good example. A shortage of nurses will directly correlate to poor patient care and possible death. But a shortage of security experts? Who knows. I worked at an insurance company that left an access database open to the internet FOR YEARS. We ran analytics when I found it and it was never served from our web server.
So since it didn't get into the public does that mean they were responsible for their security? If the answer is "no" then how would you ever measure these unknowns?
Security is a major problem in tech. It's very difficult, it's nuanced and its vast. Security covers so so much that it would be difficult to one or maybe even a handful of security experts to fully over all aspects of an app depending on your scope.
Beyond that though is mistakes happen. People will screw up. Even security people can screw something up. Throwing someone in jail for a screw up reminds me of the war on drugs; it's not going to stop someone from making a mistake or simply not realizing an unknown unknown.